Drug Store Days: My Youth Among the Pills and Potions

by Richard Armour

Humorist Armour recounts his childhood in San Pedro and Claremont, California during the early part of the 20th century.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Richard Armour, a college professor of English who specialized in Chaucer and the English Romantic poets, was best known as a prolific author of light verse and wacky parodies of academic scholarship. He was a professor of English at Scripps College in Claremont from 1945 to 1966.

Armour was raised in Pomona, California, where his father owned a drugstore. He graduated from Pomona College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, then obtained his master's and Ph.D. in English literature at Harvard. He was a Harvard research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum library in London.

Reviews

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Pomona, California (my birthplace), this is the book for you. Go back to before 2000, 1900, and book, that's where it begins. . .this is a memoir of Richard Armour's childhood in Pomona, where his father was a druggist on what becomes a main drag of the town. . . .

Ah. The smell of hot asphalt in high summer. Chlorine of warm pool water. The rustle of palm fronds. The far off call of a train, and a siren a few miles away. Good times.

jk. I love the book, and love the city that melted into Pomona-Ontario-Montclair-Chino-Claremont. Let me stand under those beautiful pepper trees on a breezy day. Unforgettable.

[Alexander Peck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Armour reminisces about his childhood. It is a light read and it is enjoyable, lighthearted, does not take itself to seriously. What makes it valuable is the context as there is not many glimpses into American history during the turn of the last century. If you read this book looking for that you may be disappointed, but if you read it looking for fun it is a nice added benefit.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting, easy-to-read account of growing in Pomona, California in the early part of the twentieth century. From the time of horses and bicycles to the horseless carriages, Richard Armour lived in interesting times.